It is known that many athletes, particularly goalies in soccer and wide-receivers in football, prefer to utilize gloves. Indeed, gloves allow such athletes to optimize catching of the ball and prevent injury to the hand by dampening the ball's impact. In particular, with regard to goalies in soccer, the use of a foam-like and/or other material on the face of goalie gloves has been known for years to increase the ability of goalkeepers to catch and control the ball. In fact, goalie gloves have developed over the years to increase the surface area of the foam-like material while maintaining the flexibility and feel needed for a goalkeeper to control and distribute the ball while in his possession.
In catching certain types of low shots, short hops and ground balls, the technique employed by many goalkeepers is to scoop the ball with their hands and the underside of their forearms. When a hard shot is taken, or when the ball or goalkeepers forearms are wet or moist, balls may get by the goalkeeper by going through his forearms. The material used in most long sleeve goalkeeper jerseys is generally slick and also allows the ball to slide through a goalkeepers forearms. A few jerseys do use a small amount of foam-like material on the sleeve, but the position of the material and the amount used is generally not effective to provide a material benefit to keep balls from going through a goalkeepers forearms.
In addition, during break-away and one v. one situations, many goalkeepers use the technique of coming off of their goal line toward the oncoming player in order to cut down his angle on goal. In attempting to gain possession of the ball and/or to stop shots in these situations, many goalkeepers will extend their body horizontally across the ground toward the oncoming player, creating as much area to stop a shot as possible. In many situations, the shot taken by the offensive player will strike the goalkeeper on the underside of the forearms with great force. In other situations the offensive player will attempt to power the ball through the goalkeeper, striking the underside of the goalkeepers forearms with the ball and his foot. Again, in many cases the ball will slide through the goalkeepers arms due, in some cases, to the buildup of sweat and moisture on the goalkeeper's arms.
Additionally, it is also known that in many types of competitive sports, such as soccer and football, the forearm area is at risk to injury, particularly from impact forces caused by contact with an opponent, ground, and/or ball. As such, to prevent bodily injury to the user, it is often desirable to utilize a forearm protector, whether added directly to the forearm or to the jersey sleeve, to minimize the magnitude of force from any impact to the forearm. Unfortunately, however, in addition to providing the desired impact protection, known forearm protectors are also often bulky, frequently slide down the user's forearm and restrict the athletes' range of motion.
Accordingly, there remains a need for a device for a user and, particularly, an athlete, that increasing the ability of a goalkeeper to catch low shots, short hops and ground balls and provide increased catching and blocking ability for goalkeepers in break-away and one v. one situations by inhibiting balls from slipping through the athlete's arms. Additionally, there also remains a need for a device that facilitates the combination of gloves and forearm protectors, is less bulky, is better secured to the user's forearm and minimizes restriction upon the athletes' range of motion.